Contemporary Writing, Diddygatari media, Conclusion merchants & Peakslop
Go back?
Part One: Writing I have all kinds of hobbies but I’ve always thought writing was the best of the lot: it’s something loose and ambiguous enough that you can justify its quality with literally anything; and also i just like it the most. Compared to something empirical like art (where, while subjective, you can judge it based off the very important metric: Is it ugly), writing is so broad. I feel like writing is the most important part of any artistic project, especially nowadays as more and more avenues of artistic expression open up. Whenever I ‘’çonsume ‘’ something (and I hate that word), a lot of my attention will be directed to the style of its writing, regardless of medium. The scope of this is just to explore the style of contemporary writing and how it's DIfferent and New. I'm getting somewhere I swear.
Style is something so intuitive that there’s no way to really define it, yet it’s something you become accustomed with throughout watching something. What would I describe it as? I guess, the writer’s unique finesse used to pardon limitations of the genre. An example of this would be the author’s choice of prose in a novel. In theory it seems simple but there’s basically infinite ways to compensate for the solely word-based format of books via evocation of the five senses. This accommodation is style. In the infinite ways to demonstrate style, there’s an even greater (infinity PLUS!!!) amount of mediums.
You learn really early on that touch, taste, smell, whatever the other two were) are your body’s tools to interface the world. And these are your only ways to interface the world. And the sixth s sense/thoughts if you’re gay and count that. Art is an abstraction of these five senses in varying quantities in a way that demands suspension of disbelief, a mechanism our brain actively encourages by lessening focus on, say, a piece of paper 6 inches from our eyes, redirecting that focus to the content being analysed. Why am I saying this? I’m getting at the power of art overall but specifically more contemporary mediums.
A movie is awesome because it’s like a book’s contents but it actually evokes deeper auditory and visual signals than what your imagination can. Instead of imagining a lake, you can actually see one. Therefore movie better than book! ..no? Why…?
In my opinion it’s because a movie simply offers different avenues to express style, as opposed to amending the limitations of novels. Film as an artform is full of finesse that hides the fact parts that are missing by honing on the senses that ARE evoked. And more importantly, the introduction of People moving on a screen into the storytelling medium removes the element of active participation of consuming information that books have. The audience is a passive consumer that can choose to pay closer attention to the writing.
So….. The ultimate artform is therefore a videogame! It stimulates many senses like a movie, it has specific mechanics that force active participation, and also introduces an entirely new element of style to finesse around the limited scope and processing powers of computer programs…!
No because videogame writing, as a whole, is ass.
Part Two: Why videogame writing is ass
Ok that's slightly reactionary. Videogame writing has to change inherently to accomodate for its medium!!!And!!!The style!!!There's all this brand new style!!!Isnt that whats good!!!?? If eel like the answer is yes but I still find myself dissatisfied by the writing of videogames that make an intentional effort to exhibit 'Novel level' writing capacities. Take for example Disco Elysium and Planescape: Torment. I think these are Top quality and what people refer to when discussing videogame writing's potential. While both are awesome and I definitely recommend them, from a solely 'Writing' standpoint, the prose is overly meandering in a way that equivalates it to about the level of a subpar author's first novel. More soon